


You Can't Save Everyone But Please Try To Save Yourself

by OnlyJam



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: F/M, Gen, M/M, Medication, PTSD, The Hero Mentality, Therapy, Toxic Behavior, workaholic tendencies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-07
Updated: 2019-07-07
Packaged: 2020-06-23 18:00:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19706578
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OnlyJam/pseuds/OnlyJam
Summary: At fourteen, she was a renown hero, able to fix Paris's problems with a single phrase, balance school, a love-life and the duties of a budding fashion designer. Now, at twenty-six, putting her feet to the cold floor of her one bedroom apartment and dressing for therapy was more difficult than any Akuma.Marinette Dupain-Cheng has come to terms with the trauma that haunts her, but dealing with it was an entirely new beast.Being a hero is easy, but no one ever told you how difficult it was to recover from it.





	You Can't Save Everyone But Please Try To Save Yourself

Her eyes met his but didn’t, the soft light of the lamp blurred the line between her pupil and her dark iris. He sat down on the side of the bed, wrapping a soft arm around her shoulders. He didn’t push any farther than that. Dr. Werner had specified that boundaries were important when trying to guide her out of that mental trap.  A  cup of ice cold water was pressed into Marinette’s palm as the light returned to her eyes. Adrien sighed in relief. It hadn’t lasted as long this time. 

“Mari? Can you hear me?” His voice was soft, cracking slightly over his best friend’s name. Marinette gave a soft nod in response. “I'm gonna give you your med, alright?” He waited for confirmation before placing the small pink pill into her palm. “I’m… I’m really sorry about yesterday. You were right,” Adrien stopped himself. He didn’t need to say anything else, or rather, wouldn’t allow himself to say anything else. Risking another bout of dissociation or worse, another screaming match was the last thing he wanted to do. 

The bluenette took the pill lethargically and set the glass down, “Dr. Werner gave me a list of psychiatrists for you to talk to… We could look through them?” She brought up softly. If Adrien thought his voice was cracking before, it was nothing compared to the sandpaper lodged in his best friend’s throat. 

“Brownies and Sailor Moon?” He followed her suggestion with a meek smile, dropping his arm from her shoulder. Marinette had never been the same about physical affection after-... He couldn’t finish his thought as his gaze drifted over to an empty miniature pillow seated on the windowsill. 

Tikki had left before Mari had moved out of her parent’s attic but she insisted on keeping the little pillow with her in her new place, just in case she came back. They both knew that wouldn’t happen. That pillow would stay empty and it was very unlikely it would finally be put away anytime soon. 

A chime broke the silence just as the young fashion designer was about to speak. Blue eyes lit up as Marinette practically jumped for the cellphone on her bedside table. A large crack ran across the screen. It hadn’t been there yesterday morning. Blonde eyebrows furrowed as violent memories of that same phone being thrown across the kitchen by its owner late last night bubbled to the surface. Adrien’s ribcage felt as if it had started to constrict as the mental records of just exactly what he had said to her started to surface. The feeling of panic started to burn behind his eyes and his manicured nails curled into his upper arm. 

He stopped himself, he couldn’t do this right now. Asking for Marinette to try to deal with this after her own attack would be asking too much. The blonde man ran a hand through his hair and took a deep breath, pointedly ignoring the cellphone Marinette was typing away on. 

“Adrien? Hey.. can we raincheck on this? It’s just... Nath texted me. He found some of Marc’s old journals and-..” Her voice tapered off, the excuses falling on deaf ears as the green-eyed university student only smiled and nodded, reaching for his jacket laying over her bed-post. 

“Yeah, yeah. No problem.” With his confirmation, Marinette jumped to her feet and threw on her jacket and shoes, the soulless look in her eyes only moments before was lightyears away. It had been replaced by something he could only connect to his deceased Lady; The determination she used to have in a fight before her soul was seized from her chest, along with her friends and love for herself. Marinette rushed out of her front door, not worrying to lock it, keenly aware of the cat printed key hanging off the blonde’s keyring to her front door. 

As the door shut energetically behind him, Adrien’s eyes landed on the pictures on his best friend’s dresser; Marc and Nathanael Anciel-Kurtzberg, their engagement photo to be more specific, Luka Couffaine with Rose Lavillant and Juleka Couffaine right after the girls’ first date, and finally, a candid shot Adrien had taken himself of Tikki and Marinette napping by the windowsill at her parent’s house. As much as the ex-hero wanted to grab her shoulders and shake her, yelling that she needed to move on from the blood she saw on her own hands, he knew how difficult that was. 

His hand ghosted over the engagement photo. Chat Noir had been the first on the scene, jumping between Akuma sightings. He had heard screaming and came to a halt in his building vaulting, Nathanael, his old classmate, held his fiance in his arms, blood soaked the concrete below him, sirens wept faintly in the background. A large piece of rubble had crushed his ribcage and deflated his lungs. His death wasn’t easy or painless, but there wasn’t anything Adrien wouldn’t give for that to be him instead. The artist and writer had been truly happy, in the process of adopting a child from the United States, and working on their bestselling Ladybug comic. 

He let the glass run under his fingers as he slipped to the floor, leaning against the dresser. Adrien Agreste had fallen and he had fallen far. His father was a criminal, his mother had died, his role as a hero and his freedom had once again been stripped. Instead, he was given this grayscale, mock imitation of freedom. There wasn’t anything he wouldn’t give to feel that thrill of flying through the streets of Paris, unhinged from his name and his responsibilities one last time. His new life, the one made of the scraps he could scrounge, weighed heavily under his eyes. The green-eyed man just wanted it to all stop, the bills, the hospital calls, the prison visits, and the glances, whispers brushing past him on the streets. He wasn’t like Marinette, who could help others and help herself, Adrien could barely keep himself alive. It was a tightrope walk to avoid walking away from it all, leave behind the remnants that he had saved,  _ ending his own life. _

That thought shook the blonde to his core. Never having admitted that to himself, he looked down at his own hands, terrified. The hero shook that thought from his head and stood, keen on leaving Marinette’s space as he had greeted it. 

**Author's Note:**

> Hiya! I'm OnlyJam. I'm a survivor of PTSD and manic depression. What I'm using here for Marinette is based on my own experience. It may not be 100% factual but is an internal representation of my own outward expression of PTSD.  
> I appreciate you reading but please, do proper research and respectfully ask questions before attempting to give a character a mental illness. We aren't mindless character tropes. We are people.


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